Economic and Social Perspectives

Economic and Social Perspectives provide guidance on today’s global policy challenges related to food and agriculture. Written in non-technical language, they explain why policy makers need to address a particular issue and how they might do so.

Recent Briefs

How policies drove up prices... and how they can help stabilise the market

After increasing slowly and steadily from historic lows, world rice prices tripled in just six months during 2007-08. The price surge caused much anxiety because so many of the world’s poor are rice consumers. And it caught many by surprise [...]

Emergency situations have become increasingly frequent over the past 25 years, often coupled with acute and chronic food insecurity in the affected countries. International responses to these crises have generally focused on addressing immediate humanitarian needs, as evidenced by the [...]

At close to one billion, the number of undernourished people in the world remains unacceptably high in 2010 despite an expected decline – the first in 15 years. This decline is largely attributable to a more favourable economic environment in [...]